1. Federer knew every time he hit his regular backhand that this point could have been won if the ball was on his forehand. Multiply that with over 100 strokes coupled with losing stats for the match – despite his best effort – and you can at least entertain the ‘frustration’ theory if not completely agree with it. That relentless battering in any match is enough to rile you up but when you know that losing this particular match will ignite the ‘mentally fragile’ BS – again, the frustration threshold moves up the chart rather quickly dropping the word patience from the vocabulary momentarily.

The discrepancy between Federer’s backhand and forehand is enormous anyway, but against Nadal it reaches a whole new peak to leave him helpless, frustrated and on the verge of exploding. Not many can question the fact that if the ratio is reversed – forehand to backhand – Federer WILL win every freaking match – irrespective of the surface. So if Federer knows it so well, why doesn’t he work to bridge the gap? It’s because the pain required to fix it is greater than losing to Nadal. That’s it.

There are numerous players currently on the tour whose backhand is as good if not better than their forehand. So it can be done – even mid-stream. It’s just about putting in the work – plain and simple.

2. The flat backhand was introduced too late in the game to be considered a ploy to baffle Nadal. By then the result was more or less a foregone conclusion and the patience stream was down to its last thread. Besides, its too risky a shot even for Federer. Way too much work is needed to perfect that, so it can be employed on a regular basis. Blake is the most perfect example of how far you can take it. It’s like a being bullied by a big kid for so long that you eventually just snap and go ballistic. Bad part of all that? Nadal was more than able to handle it – with very little discomfort.

All the ailments you are currently carrying – mental and physical – have cures in the food kingdom. So instead of taking the easy way out FIRST, check on what you can eat to appease if not cure your freaking problem.

Rod Laver was so scrawny and sickly as a child in the Australian bush that no one could guess he would become a left-handed whirlwind who would conquer the tennis world and be known as possibly the greatest player ever.

Laver was the World No. 1 player for seven consecutive years, from 1964 to 1970.

He is the only tennis player to have twice won all four Grand Slam singles titles in the same year — first as an amateur in 1962 and second as a professional in 1969.

Rod Laver and Roy Emerson are the only male players to win each major title twice in their careers.

Residence Carlsbad, California, U.S.

Laver was a young boy when he left school to pursue a tennis career that lasted 24 years.

The year 1969 was Laver’s finest, perhaps the best experienced by any player, as he won an open-era record 17 singles tournaments (tied by Guillermo Vilas in 1977) of 32 played on a 106-16 match record. In 1962 he won 19 of 34 on 134-15.

Overall, amateur and pro, he is the all-time leader with 184 singles titles.

Suffering a massive stroke that might have killed him in 1998, he rehabilitated with the same drive that made him a champion, and today continues normally, playing tennis and golf with friends.

Can you today produce a ball machine that replicates a player? If you can remotely drive a four-wheeler on the moon, this should be a ‘moon walk’, don’t you think?

So if that’s a given it now boils down to cashola. If you have earned nearly $60 freaking million by age 28 and your legacy hangs in the balance on solving just ONE freaking puzzle, doesn’t this automatically become a no-brainer?

Even if you cannot duplicate ALL the shots it will still be worth it in this particular case since all you need is just ONE freaking shot. So if this girly guy from Switzerland can produce this machine today and go at it everyday from now till Roland Garros starts for at least four hours a day, you think there’s a possibility that it may improve his chances? Or is Nadal so massively in his brain by now that it’s all a lost cause?

Quiet, please: Wimbledon appoints its first official poet
Matt Harvey becomes the All England Club’s first writer in residence after tournament organisers team up with Poetry Trust

Caroline Davies
The Guardian,
Wednesday 19 May 2010

Matt Harvey will serenade the Wimbledon queue with poems inspired by the tournament.

Previous Wimbledon tennis champions may have been motivated to greatness by the rousing passage from Rudyard Kipling’s If inscribed above the players’ entrance to Centre Court.

But players inspired by the words “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same” now have a new muse, after Matt Harvey’s appointment as the Championships’ first official poet.

Harvey will produce a poem a day throughout the fortnight as the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club follows Heathrow airport and Marks & Spencer in embracing the vogue for writers in residence.

Kipling’s 1899 masterpiece may be a daunting act to follow, but Harvey, who will produce a poem a day throughout the fortnight and is a regular on Radio 4′s Saturday Live, will be doing his best to capture the flavour of the event, with verses published online and in special podcasts.

Harvey, who has already written his first poem as Championships Poet 2010, called Grandest of Slams, said he was thrilled but nervous at his appointment.

“Quite simply I’m delighted, with a little bit of healthy anxiety thrown in,” he admitted. “It’s an honour, and I’m acutely conscious it’s the only time I’ll come first in anything at Wimbledon, unless you count the queue for strawberries.”

The new role has been created as a result of Wimbledon teaming up with the Poetry Trust.

Harvey’s poems will feature on the trust’s website, – at thepoetrytrust.org and at wimbledon.org, the official Wimbledon site.

Harvey, whose new role came about after Wimbledon teamed up with the Poetry Trust, will keep a blog and talk to fans via Twitter.

He will also recite his poems to the queues waiting to enter the club, though Centre Court’s new roof will deny him the chance to upstage Sir Cliff Richard in the rain-tertainment stakes.

Honor Godfrey, curator of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum which proposed the concept, said: “We are always examining different ways of interpreting the Championships and this year the club agreed that having an official Championships Poet would provide a novel and interesting way of doing this.”

Naomi Jaffa, director of the Poetry Trust, said: “We couldn’t be more thrilled and excited – for Matt, who’s a poet we’re so proud to champion, and for the tennis-loving millions around the world who’ll be surprised and delighted, we hope, by some truly ace poems.”